


Knock It Out of the Park

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: MST3K Alternate Universes [21]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Gen, also you know when you really really want to impress your boss, cause you kinda wanna kiss them, that's this too, well that's definitely this, you know when you write an AU you know fucking nothing about really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 00:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Jonah is a pitcher at the start of his career with a whole lot to prove and enough talent to prove it. He's out to impress the owner of his team (which just might be impossible) and his pitching coach (which is way easier than he realizes).





	Knock It Out of the Park

**Author's Note:**

> I started this after going to my very first Major League game at Fenway Park. Yes, I KNOW, I KNOW, I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL. I have to write every damn idea that pops into my head. Hopefully my blatant lack of baseball knowledge combined with my overdeveloped skills at writing alternate universes results in something that's at least entertaining.

Jonah felt like he'd earned his place as a closing pitcher despite the tender age of his career as a baseball player. Sure, his rookie year was behind him, but not far enough in the past for some people to think he deserved his position. He thought his statistics spoke to his worth in a pretty undeniable way, but there were people-- and not a few of them-- who suggested that he'd slept his way to closer status.

The start of the game had gone well for him. He'd knocked out a home run in the third inning with two on base, but it didn't matter what he'd hit earlier when it was his time to shine at what he really excelled at. Now, though, now he took the mound with tens of thousands of screams ringing in his ears, and he barely glanced at the crowd. He looked straight up at the VIP box and smiled. The team's owner was framed in the long window, twisting her long red ponytail around one finger. She rolled her eyes and dropped her hair and it turned into a "get on with it" motion. Jonah rolled his shoulders and started his warmup pitches.

No, he hadn't slept his way into the closer position. It was actually the opposite: his game had improved so much because he was desperately trying to impress Kinga Forrester. The rumors were already circulating, and it was Jonah's wishful thinking to put some truth behind them.

Kinga wasn't the only one to spur his improvement, or the only one he was trying to impress. At least Jonah knew the pitching coach would return his smiles. With the amount of time they'd spent together honing Jonah's skills, he felt like Max was one of his closer friends at this point, and one of the few people who knew all of the blood, sweat, and occasional tears that had gone into Jonah earning his place honestly with no favoritism involved. It was weird to know that Jonah was Max's method of impressing Kinga, since Jonah's improvement was the score of Max's effectiveness.

 _No pressure or anything_ , Jonah thought as he watched Max fidget with his glasses while the first batter walked to the plate, telling him in code what Jonah already knew: the batter couldn't hit a cutter to save his life and would be an easy out. The whole point of a closer's career was not to give up any runs; Jonah's goal was for every ball to end up in the catcher's mitt, and he was good at achieving it. He had a streak going. So far it had been nine games since anyone had so much as touched a pitch of his. Tonight felt good, a perfect June night with the timbre of the crowd at a friendly pitch drowning out the ringing in his ears and tuning him into exactly the time and place he was, at the epicenter of the clamor that cleared his mind like a white noise machine at jet engine decibels. 

It was barely baseball if he did it right. It was just catch. The batter didn't even matter. It was just a very fast, intense game of catch. That was how Jonah framed it to himself. The bat was merely an obstacle that he was good at avoiding. It was just a game, and winning it was getting easier the more he did it, especially tonight on the last game of three at home and down by two, when he had twenty-five innings of watching how these guys swung to figure out how to throw to make anything they did irrelevant. As long as he kept them from scoring again, it was up to his teammates to make up the difference.

The thing about being a closing pitcher was, if you were good at it, you did less of it. So it didn't really take a lot of time before he was ambling back to the dugout with a glance up to find her watching him with a straight look on her face as he left the mound. Max greeted him with a water bottle and a smile of his own as Tom went up to bat.

"You look like you're a million miles away in your head when you're out there," he said, and Jonah shook his head.

"I know exactly where I am." 

"I'm not sure you don't echolocate to make that true."

"Wouldn't I have to emit the sound myself to be echolocating?"

"I don't think so..."

"I don't think I'm echolocating." Jonah wouldn't sit down once he got up to pitch, but he slouched against the wall of the dugout with his long legs stuck out in front of him at an unlikely angle, making himself much shorter and conversation easier on both their necks. "I'm pretty sure I'm relying on my vision."

"You can't be with those gigantic hearts in your eyes while you're out there." Jonah flushed, and Max laughed into his hand. "Oh, come on. It's like you're waiting for her to throw a favor out of the box for you to tuck into your glove."

"Shut up," Jonah said. "Don't make it sound so pathetic, it's disheartening."

"It's not pathetic, it's cute. It's doomed, but it's cute."

"What do you mean doomed?" The second baseman, Crow, went past them with a fistbump for Jonah on his way to the plate, and they both looked out at the field. Max didn't look back at him when he answered the question.

"I mean no one ever gets anywhere with her. I've been with the team since she became the owner and unless you're a hypnotist or an alien you're as likely as anyone to actually catch her attention, which is no one." 

"That's pessimistic," Jonah said. "And I don't see why other people's failures should mean I don't try."

"By all means, try. Go for it. But don't let it affect your game when she turns her nose up at you for the hundredth time."

"I have an advantage you don't have," Jonah said, and Max gave him an exaggerated up and down look.

"No kidding?"

"You're too cute to be sexy. That never works on the ice queen type."

"Oh, what do you know about it, Casanova?" Max looked perturbed for at least two reasons.

"I read her horoscope."

"You did what?"

"Yeah, I looked up her stars. She just doesn't dig your cute and cuddly vibe. She needs a, uh, a rakish bad boy type to satisfy her need for drama."

"And _you're_ a rakish bad boy type?" Max asked skeptically. "Wait, you... you _are_ fucking with me, right?"

"Of course I am. Horoscopes? Really? It's total bullshit." Jonah paused as Cam left the dugout. "Except for when it's totally accurate like yours is."

"Don't be an asshole."

"If you've never looked it up you should, that's all I'm saying."

"You're a space case. I swear, Heston, you say the most ridiculous things with a straight face." 

"I wasn't fucking with you when I called you cute," Jonah said, and Max rolled his eyes.

"Case in point."

"You could at least take me seriously."

"Why? You're not going to take me seriously."

"I do too."

"You wouldn't."

"Cryptic much?"

"If you want to talk about it after the game we can, but I'd rather drop it."

"Well, now I can't drop it until I know what you're talking about," Jonah said, reasonably in his opinion. Mike paused on his way out of the dugout to elbow Jonah.

"Are you paying attention? I'm about to hit a grand slam." Jonah blinked and scanned the field to find the bases loaded, and Mike rolled his eyes. "Ground control to Major Heston..." Then he walked out and the sound of the crowd's screaming ramped up a notch. 

"Ten bucks says he chokes," Max said casually. Jonah snorted. 

"Twenty says he walks."

"Either way, someone else is going to be at bat after him. With or without loaded bases."

"That's what I figure."

"Too bad you never hit after you pitch. You'd clean this up."

"Your vote of confidence has been noted."

"It's not too late to pull the pinch hitter."

"You're very unsubtle."

"I'm not trying to be subtle, I'm trying to get you to win the game." Jonah gave Max a skeptical look, and Max shrugged. "You want to get her attention, don't you? You'd basically be gift-wrapping yourself if you pulled it off."

"I thought you said I didn't have a chance."

"What can I say, for some reason I'm rooting for you." Jonah's skeptical look became a thoughtful one, and Max frowned up over the edge of his glasses. "Or you can let the chance slip through your fingers and let someone else grab the glory, that's an option too."

"Yeah, well..." Jonah folded his arms and looked out onto the field. Mike had a strike and a ball, and racked up another ball while Jonah watched. "I bet Matt would be pissed if I stole his opportunity."

"So? You're the rising star, not him. You have to be a little ruthless if you want to make your name." Max watched Jonah expectantly as Jonah chewed his lip thoughtfully, arching his brows when Jonah looked back at him. "Well?"

"Put me in the roster," Jonah said, and Max bounced on his toes.

"Yes! Thatta boy." He scurried off to make the change, and Jonah sighed to himself and looked back out at the field. It would look like sheer hubris if he failed, but he'd be a fucking rock star if he pulled it off. And, honestly, being a pitcher meant he understood pitching, and he understood the way this pitcher worked. 

"I got this," he muttered to himself. "I totally got this. No problem." The timbre of the crowd noise was getting restless as Mike got another ball, and Jonah looked up at the screen with the upcoming batters until _Matt Claude Van Damme_ disappeared and _Jonah Heston_ replaced it. "Oh jeez. No, I got this."

"You got this," Max agreed, and Jonah startled at his sudden reappearance. "You do. Tonight's going to go down as a star in your career history." The crowd started howling, and everyone on base took an unhurried walk to the next one. Tom came jogging back to the dugout and elbowed Jonah.

"Scene stealer," he accused, and Jonah shrugged. "Go make us proud, kid."

"Jonah..." Max touched his arm and Jonah looked down at him with a brow arched. "Knock 'em dead."

"Do my best," Jonah said, and he walked out onto the field. 

"Next at bat... closing pitcher, Jonah Heston," the announcer boomed, and the crowd went absolutely batshit. Jonah let his eyes close and the sound wash through him, and by the time he picked up a bat and gave it a practice swing, he had a grin he couldn't repress. He could only imagine the look on Kinga's face. The only expression he could see clearly was the opposing pitcher's, and he did not look pleased. 

Jonah was by far the tallest guy on the team. His strike zone was unusually big because of that fact-- he just had a lot of leg to account for. And one thing he knew about this pitcher was that he'd fallen into the popular trap of trying to avoid the strike zone-- hence Mike getting walked. Jonah had zero intention of walking, but he needed to get the measure of where this guy was throwing before he took a swing.

The first pitch whiffed past Jonah's knees. Jonah rolled his eyes and adjusted his stance a little. The second pitch went even lower than that. "Oh, come _on_!" He waved a hand to indicate where the pitches should be going and the crowd noise bubbled with laughter. The pitcher thumbed his nose and and wound up, and as the ball came at Jonah for the third time, his legs went out to either side and the drop in his height meant that when he swung, his bat hit the ball squarely and sent it flying. The outfielders scrambled fruitlessly as the ball soared over their heads and straight out of the stadium.

The screams of the crowd were nearly a physical force battering against him as he strolled around the bases, more than a little cocky and completely justified about it. Going from first to second he looked up at the giant board displaying his headshot and statistics and smirked at how much better they were now than the first time he'd been at bat tonight, and going from second to third and back home he looked up at the VIP box and found Kinga smirking just as hard. She flashed him a thumbs up and he beamed at her.

"Look a little more smug," Max said as Jonah re-entered the dugout.

"You owe me twenty bucks," Jonah said, and Max snorted and adjusted his glasses.

"You owe me a thank you for prodding you onto the field, you jerk."

"Thank you, Max." Jonah's voice was heavy with sincerity, and Max gave him a wry smile.

"It's my job to push you."

"Yeah, but you're not an asshole about it."

"That's because it's obvious to anyone with eyes that the carrot works way better than the stick with you."

"You're a great coach. I'm glad to work with you."

"Don't get all mushy on me," Max said, but he was obviously pleased, and he nudged Jonah with his elbow. "So... what was her reaction?"

"I got a thumbs up."

"High praise! What did I tell you?"

"You're right... you're usually right." Max gave Jonah a grin and nodded out at the field.

"Think you can keep the lead you gave us?"

"It'd be pathetic if I broke my streak _now_ ," Jonah said, and he rolled his shoulders. "Pretty sure we won't need the bottom of the ninth."

"That's what I like to hear."

"So... you want to let me know what you were talking about before?"

"I told you, we'll talk about it after the game. I'm not going to distract you now."

"Come on, I think I've earned a hint, at least." Max crossed his arms and looked up at Jonah for a moment, and then shrugged.

"Fine. I don't think you're a rakish bad boy type. I think you're a gigantic, adorable dork. The only thing that makes me more cute and cuddly than you is the fact that I'm a foot shorter than you. Kinga doesn't know that because she hasn't spent that much time with you. But you do have the whole..." He waved one hand, indicating Jonah's whole body vaguely. "You know. Hot and athletic thing going for you."

"Did... did you just call me hot?" Jonah looked delighted. Max sighed and dropped his face into his hands.

"You heard me."

"Is that why you thought I wouldn't take you seriously?"

"I don't think you're going to care what I think if you actually manage to catch Kinga's attention."

"Oh, come on, do you really think I'm that callous?"

"I don't think you're callous. I _know_ you're goal-oriented. And I'm not your goal." 

"Max." Jonah waited until Max looked up at him and offered him a warm smile. "You of all people should know that I can multitask." 

"Oh, stop."

"Do you know how hard I work to impress you?"

"Uh, yeah, I am your coach." Max nodded past him at the field where their last batter was coming in from striking out. "And you've got one more inning to impress me and her and everyone. Go on and wrap it up."

"This conversation isn't over," Jonah said, and Max's lips quirked up.

"You know where I'll be when you want to continue it. Get out there."

Mopping up his last inning on the mound was almost an afterthought. Jonah felt giddy as he threw one strike after another, splitting glances between his very obviously pleased team owner up in the box and his equally obviously nerve-struck coach in the dugout. The crowd started chanting his name as the final batter stepped up to the plate, volume increasing after each strike, and Jonah paused after the last ball he threw smacked right into the catcher's mitt and closed his eyes, buoyed by the roar of admiration and his hopes for what the night still might have in store for him.

It had been, by all accounts, the best night of his career yet. He had a feeling that it just might be the best night of his personal life too.


End file.
